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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30018924">be kind (rewind)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivers/pseuds/fivers'>fivers</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Hat in Time (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Gen, Hat Kid gets 4 dads because I said so, Other, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, its self-indulgence okay, listen there’s so much family bonding in this</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:21:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,414</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30018924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivers/pseuds/fivers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“Look, kiddo,” Came the disembodied voice, then the lights in her room -- and the entire ship -- flickers once, twice, then fizzes out in a pop. It snaps back on the next second, and she’s looking at the Snatcher; tall, dark and ominous, his usual grin sharper than she remembers. “First you disregard what I’ve told you, then you lure my minions away from their duties- AND now you’re making me play mailman?! Just how many times are you going to-”</p>
  <p>He paused, looking upon her peculiar group; an owl, a penguin, a little girl and a jar of floating eyeballs playing a game of checkers. He blinks, for once at a loss of words.</p>
  <p>The first one to break the silence was the Conductor. “Who the hell are ye?” He snaps.</p>
</blockquote>Or, why Time Magic is dangerous, and how Hat Kid accidentally gains four dads amidst it all, despite everything.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hat Kid &amp; Everyone, Hat Kid &amp; Snatcher (A Hat in Time)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>90</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>be kind (rewind)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first was the Mafia Boss.</p><p>Well, technically her first visitor was the dummy that broke her window, then Cooking Cat. But she’s not too sure if they count; with the former only staying outside her spaceship and the latter leaving immediately after showing her how relics work. Her computer explained to her that guests are supposed to be people who visit ‘so-cel-lee’, whatever that means. But Mafia Boss would perhaps be her first proper visitor from this world, with how long he stayed.</p><p>She has no idea how he got in here though, given that he’s a literal jar of goo and eyeballs right now. Maybe it was one of his minions that brought him here?</p><p>Still, he yells at her the moment she returns from her trip to Dead Birds Studio, yells at her some more when she doesn’t remember who he is (which in her defense she’s met a lot of mafia since she stepped onto this weird planet; how the heck is she supposed to remember them all?), then fumes when she wouldn’t hand her body over to him. </p><p>She thinks he’s a very funny goo-man. Silly mafia, how will she eat her snacks and play in her pillow pit if she does?</p><p>"Fine!” He snaps. “I’ll just buy a new body then! There has to be some poor soul out there who would be willing to trade his corpse for money!”</p><p>She nods along to him, because there are definitely some weirdos out there who totally would. She had her fair share of encounters in the past, and- disclaimer, she absolutely holds no judgement against them. Her machine taught her that everyone’s entitled to their preference, with or without a body, and it’s better to say nothing at all than something rude. </p><p>...But she <em>wonders</em> how he’s supposed to do that without hands or legs. Or even a mouth. Mafia Boss freezes mid-rant, seemingly reaching the same conclusion as she did.</p><p>And then his gaze falls upon the relic piece in her hands.</p><p>It’s nothing flashy; a miniature figurine of a ‘train’, according to the posters in the studio. She found it while poking around in between shootings that morning, and didn’t think anyone would miss it. It was laying in an old dusty chest, after all. Besides, it would make a great fit with the tiny mountain set she found weeks ago.</p><p>“Ohohoho, you like relics, eh?” Mafia Boss says to her, almost gleeful. </p><p>She shrugs. What’s wrong with collecting souvenirs from this world? She has always done it whenever she visits a planet.</p><p>“What if I tell you how to find more?” He grins, or at least, she imagines he would if he still has a mouth. “I may not look like it right now, but I’m well-travelled. I know the whereabouts of all secrets on this planet!”</p><p>A cart pops into existence right in front of her- magic, she guessed. All the citizens of this world seem to have them in varying traces; from the young to old, humans to non-humans. Mafia Boss plops onto the counter with a clunk, then out poofs a red case before him, snapping open with a flourish. In it sits a shiny, brown thing. A badge.</p><p>“Buy my map badge,” He booms, voices as loud as before when you beat his face into his stage. “And I will show you where you can find relics that will make you rich!”</p><p>He launches into a noteworthy pitch just like those space salesmen she occasionally runs into, but more bombastically, more enthusiastically. Stand still, and the magic within it will lead her to every relic, every token, collectables and more. And oh, did he mention that there are hundreds of them scattered in Mafia Town alone?</p><p>She blinks, and considers. One hundred pons isn’t a lot-  which she assumes, and maybe she should worry about him lying to her like how some of those salesmen did, but at this point she’s got more than twice the amount of money lying in her backpack with how much the citizens misplace them -- just yesterday she picked up thirty-eight pons alone! And collecting more relics seems… fun, anyway. She always loved picking up a couple as a way to remember her time on different planets.</p><p>Okay, then. She picks the pons out and hands them over, blinking as they disappear into… wherever Mafia Boss is keeping his stuff. In exchange, he hops onto the case, the force from his weight flicking the badge into the air and into her outstretched hands.</p><p>“Pleasure doing business with you, hat child!” He says, jar spinning on its edge until he twirls to a stop. Or at least, what he had intended to do; instead, he tips over and rolls off the cart with a loud plonk! A cloud of swearing follows soon after.</p><p>She giggles at his performance, then skips off to the living room. She’s got relics to put together, after all.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After that, he doesn’t… leave, for some reason.</p><p>He becomes the first thing she sees whenever she returns from another day of exhausting filming; always hanging out in that corner of the machine room, always seems to be busy with something. She catches him with books he somehow pulled from the shelves, then scattered papers and markers, then pouches of pons around him that he counts whenever he remembers that he has no hands to write or draw with. At least he can roll the pons around -- more often than not he’s distracted with stacking them up like blocks of wood, spheres perfectly and impossibly balanced atop each other. His current high score is twelve, impressively.</p><p>He never bothers or talks to her.</p><p>She doesn’t ask why he stays. For one, it must be difficult to get anywhere without legs, minus the mystery of how he got up here in the first place. He doesn’t look like he wants to share that tidbit anytime soon, so she figured that she shouldn’t press. Some people might be sensitive.</p><p>Secondly; she doesn’t mind at all. Without a body he’s as harmless as a fly, so there’s no harm in letting him stay while she’s still here. It’s exciting -- she’s never had a visitor that stayed for this long!</p><p>The pattern breaks one day; there is still a week or two before the Conductor and DJ Grooves will be ready with their scripts, so she takes the chance to go on a whirl with her shiny new map badge. Mafia Town is as sunny as ever, and it was in one of their stalls where a pretty bauble catches her eye.</p><p>Then there was a problem.</p><p>The stall seller had said a number: three hundred and something <em>something, </em>and she can’t remember it right no matter how hard she thinks. It’s why she’s currently sprawled in the machine room, trying to solve her problem; her hat is off, and she uses her bag as a back cushion. A plate of half-eaten cookies and a glass of water sits by her side.</p><p>“Little hat girl,” Came the questioning tone. “Just <em>what </em>are you doing?”</p><p>She looks up to Mafia Boss quirking an eyebrow at her, pons scattered around her legs. She's been counting them since lunchtime.</p><p>“I want to buy something,” She tells him. “But I don’t know how to count.”</p><p>“Don’t know how to <em>count? </em>You were fine when I sold you the badge!”</p><p>“Yeah, but it was only one hundred,” She says, furrowing her brows. “I don’t know how to count past that yet and your money is <em>weird.”</em></p><p>It’s true. There’s always a different language and currency for each world she has visited. It wouldn’t be a problem at all, but she just hadn’t had the time to adjust to it yet, with movie shootings and collecting time pieces eating up her energy.</p><p>“Aye, that is not good.” Mafia Boss makes a noise of displeasure. “Come here. Bring your pons and get some paper and markers. Let Mafia teach you how money works.”</p><p>So she goes.</p><p>It turns out that he is a great teacher, surprisingly. He gets her to recite the numbers she knows to him, which was a little bit past a hundred, and then builds it from there; explaining terms and definitions, shows her what two hundred, three hundred sounds like in their language so her modulator picks it up. It’s the math part that mostly stumps her, but he effortlessly breaks down the numbers for her, explaining how to plus and minus, multiply and divide in groups, separating dollars from cents in his loud voice. </p><p>He teaches as if he’s performing a show, all grand gestures and commentaries -- he has no hands to make sweeping waves, no torso or head to shake and tilt, but he bounces in his jar, balances and spins on an edge as he talks. And he never seems to run out of compliments for her when she gets an answer right, boasting <em>Attagirl </em>and <em>There we go </em>and <em>Yes! Little girl is very good!</em></p><p>“Now tell me how much would this be, if I want to buy all five relics.”</p><p>She thinks long and hard, fingers fluttering, then: “Four hundred and sixty-two!”</p><p>“Excellent!” He grins at her. “Little girl learns faster than grandmama. Soon you will conquer the markets, just like how Mafia did!”</p><p>She cheers. She likes him better like this, without the crazed, mad glint in his eyes when he was on the stage, time piece gripped tightly in his hands.</p><p>By the end of it all, she understands how to count easier now. Mafia boss showed her how to count in groups, and how to use one hand (Just one hand! She can’t believe it!) to count numbers bigger than ten. He tells her to practice until she is used to it, and he’ll show her even more tricks in the future.</p><p>“Thank you,” She tells him, because she doesn’t want to be rude. And because this was one of the best afternoons she’s ever had.</p><p>“No problem.” He says. “Next time you have money problems, come to me and I will teach you.”</p><p>She never thought numbers could be so fun to learn -- she nodded off more than enough times whenever she asked her machines the same questions, and math textbooks confuses her too much. Of course she will. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The following weeks pass in a blur. She practices stunts, dances alongside squads of penguins, and there’s a never ending flow of misplaced props that she ends up treasure hunting for, but that’s okay. The owls teach her jaunty tunes and silly rhymes, and recites her scripts to her since she can’t read them. The penguins engage her with mock sword fights with the box of styrofoam tubes they unearthed from deep within the storage bay, reenacting pirate movies with gusto and disco.</p><p>The only constant is her math lessons with Boss, which he conducts with no less enthusiasm than before. She pesters him each time there’s a lull in between scene shootings, showing him her spoils she pilfered from Mafia Town and the city. She gets better with numbers as time goes on.</p><p>She suspects that he’s secretly enjoying it, but he always denies it with a huff when she asks. What a loser. He makes a funny face when she calls him out on it, and rolls off his cart to chase after her as she laughs and laughs.</p><p>Please. She’s already seen what he looks like when she whacked him with her umbrella in front of hundreds of his goons. As if he has any dignity left.</p><p>In the third month of filming, she learns how to walk on telephone wires, avoid nosy paparazzi, and brings back eleven Birdlock Holms films to study before her next big scene with the CAW agents. The Conductor insisted that she does, to add to the atmosphere. She frowns at her script instead -- What the heck is a CAPTCHA code?</p><p>(Boss shows her how to multiply in sevens, eights and nines without using fingers, to her absolute amazement.)</p><p>In the fourth and fifth month, the Owl Express explodes exactly once in the name of raw footage, much to the delight and despair of the Conductor. She doesn’t correct them that it’s actually thrice, because she’s the only one aware of time shenanigans, and busies herself with exploring the nearby city before she has to lead the parade over its rooftops. She watches as the Conductor marches up to DJ Grooves and starts a shouting match, drowned out by the constant noise in the background as the maintenance crew work overtime to get the fireworks machines back in order before their last shoot.</p><p>Behind her, an express owl scratches a tally mark on the blackboard with chalk. There’s a flipchart that says ‘0 days(s) since explosions’ by the coffee machine.</p><p>(She beats Boss’ time at counting three sacks of pons by exactly two seconds. He rings up one of his goons and gets her ice-cream, triple-scooped with extra chocolate. She learns that he is a firm believer in positive reinforcement.</p><p>“How did you learn to… make numbers work?”</p><p>“I’m a businessman!” He tells her. “And also has a lot of practice teaching the goons. Bunch of babies, they are.”)</p><p>And in the sixth, the studio holds its breath as both teams wait anxiously for the results of the Annual Bird Movie Awards.</p><p>She’s excited to see the results and the fruits of her labor blooming in becoming a movie star, but the directors decide to close the studio in the meantime, in a show of rare agreement between the both of them. Take a good long rest, they told all of them. You deserved it. Come back later.</p><p>Well, okay then. So she spends her time learning how to play card games with Boss instead. He’d promised to show her some if she could successfully count in multiples of fourteen twelve times, under a minute. He tells her it’s very difficult. Ha! She does it anyway just so she could.</p><p>It takes her five tries, though. Not that he knows of the resets. </p><p>“Boss,” Says the goon, frowning at the cards in his hands as he holds them up to the jar. “Are you sure mafia should be teaching child to play… this?”</p><p>“It’s fine!” Boss scoffs. “Is just twenty-one pons. Not like Poker!”</p><p>She makes a mental note to ask him what poker is next time. For now, she reaches out to pick another card- ooh, a queen! That makes ten pons, and alongside her other cards -- three, five and one respectively -- she has nineteen now. That’s very close!</p><p>Boss flashes her a smarmy grin. “Are you sure you don’t want another card?”</p><p>She considers, and yeah, she thinks she doesn’t. She blows him a raspberry as she reveals her cards.</p><p>“HA! Hat girl is like baby!” At that, the goon places his cards down on the table. An ace and two queens, a perfect twenty-one. Boss wriggles in his jar, laughing at her. “Want to try again?”</p><p>“Duh!” She tells him, making grabby hands.</p><p>“Really?” He squints in mock concern. “Are you sure? You might lose agaaaAGHH-”</p><p>She never backs down from a challenge and thinks that he’s getting too smug for his own good, so she reaches over to grab his jar, giving it a series of firm shakes like one of those men in the casino drink stands do. Boss alternates between gurgles and screaming as she does.</p><p>Mafia Goon sighs, settling down in his seat and starts gathering the scattered cards. “Mafia thinks hat girl is doing good. Can never win more than twice with Boss, so Mafia is impressed.”</p><p>At least someone appreciates her efforts. She pats him on his thick arms, nodding sympathetically. Must be hard playing with such a smug boss, poor guy.</p><p>He shuffles the cards, making pretty patterns with the way they flip across each other, and purses his lips considering at the jar in her hands. “In fact, Mafia lost too many times to Boss. Mafia thinks you should shake it some more.”</p><p>“Boris! You traitor!” Slurs the jar.</p><p>She laughs, and shows Boris how to make a whirlpool by flicking the jar at the right angle, with the right force.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When the results of the Annual Bird Awards are announced two weeks later, it comes as a shock to everyone in the studio:</p><p>Neither the Conductor nor DJ Grooves won. The winner was a handsome pelican with shiny black feathers, director of a cheesy yet emotionally fulfilling romance film. He beams like the sun at flashing cameras, cheerfully signing autographs and clutching at the golden trophy in his hands.</p><p>She doesn’t stay. She’s already received the time pieces from the Conductor and DJ Grooves earlier before attending the ceremony, and she figured it should be appropriate if she returns to her ship and leave the directors alone. It’s such a shame she couldn’t be a movie star, but it doesn’t compare to what the directors are going through right now. They must be feeling awful, with how they slipped away from the paparazzi with nary a word.</p><p>When she receives an anonymous tip later warning her that she’s been deceived and there’s still two more time pieces missing, she shoulders her backpack and sneaks into the studio in the dead of the night. After all her rehearsals and stunts, climbing cargo tanks and crates stacked six stories high is no sweat. She breaks her bones only twice from falling, passes out once from electrocution, but nothing a simple time rewind can fix.</p><p>(“They know about the powers of the time pieces,” Said the stammering, static-filled voice. “Please, you must stop our directors!”)</p><p>Eventually, after sneaking past all the security cameras and guards, it is in the deepest part of the basement where she confronts both of the directors, glittery time pieces in their hands.</p><p>“Look who we’ve got here, eh?” Laughs the Conductor. Above her, DJ Grooves swings on a giant disco ball. The roar from the crowds is deafening. </p><p>The dance floor lights up in a kaleidoscope of colors. She readies her umbrella.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The thing about time magic is: it influences. Corrupts. It softens you up with whispered possibilities, plants seeds into you that sings of hopes and dreams, of wanting and yearning, of desire and lust. It opens cracks in the doorways, allows you to catch a glimpse of countless opportunities in other timelines; temptations to go back and change history, erases your mistakes so it never exists. <em>Think of what you could do, </em>it croons, <em>now that you have all this power in your hands. </em></p><p>That is a lie. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and time magic blinds you in its brilliant glamour -- an illusion that makes you think you were in control. You never were, in the end; never sees it stringing you along, twisting history to your favour, never sees it wraps its pretty hands around you, pulling you deeper and deeper in its beautiful dance; never will, when you drown in the river of time, its currents sweeping your body, mind and soul away into its infinite spiral, claiming you for itself.</p><p>She knows. She’s seen it countless times before, from textbooks to lectures to educational videos. There is a reason she’s persistent in collecting them from this world, other than the fact that she needs them as fuel for her spaceship to return home.</p><p>(It consumes you.)</p><p>It is why she’s not angry at Mafia Boss. She’s also not angry at Mustache girl even though she stole half of her pons. She does not scorn DJ Grooves and the Conductor even as they rain stage lights and knives at her, half-crazed and drunk from their stolen time pieces, succumbing after months of holding onto them. Who is she to disdain them? There were plenty who hadn’t lasted a week.</p><p>Her people realised, a long time ago, that Time is a dangerous thing to tamper with. It is why all of them were taught the proper creed of a Timekeeper, why none of them ever abuses time pieces despite possessing a born resistance to its influences. Occasionally some bad eggs slip through the cracks, but they end up being horrified enough from what they saw at the end of time that they swore off upon their return, willingly repenting for their actions. The CEO of Time receives countless apology letters whenever it happens -- or at least, that’s what her machine told her. It must be true, since the universe hasn’t imploded on itself yet.</p><p>(This resistance, unfortunately, does not extend to the other ninety-five percent of the universe, who are dumb and vulnerable to the alluring song of the time pieces. So no, she’s not angry at them.) </p><p>Still, she dies three, four, five times. A disco ball crushes her ribs with the force of a ten-ton truck and time rewinds. She avoids that and an actual truck mows her down, the Conductor’s jeers ringing in her ears. She breaks many bones, gets stabbed by showers of knives before she memorises their patterns, dancing from them in the next rewind. Good thing that the pain and wounds melt into nothingness on every retry- they don’t exist anymore, didn’t exist anywhere in the first place in her distant memories, and the only thing that do is the scrapes and bruises from this timeline.</p><p>When DJ Grooves sits her down for a heart to heart, calls her ‘Darling’ and ‘Sweetheart’ and tries to convince her to let him turn back time to correct his mistakes, she looks pass his sunglasses at his glamour-blinded eyes and smacks him with her umbrella until he sees stars. When the Conductor laughs and tries the same she hits him too, sending him skidding across the floor like a roomba on sugar.</p><p>Sheesh, she can’t help but think. The time pieces sure know how to pick their victims. </p><p>(Which is worse? The timeline where one is so petty he wants to undo his one loss, or the timeline with someone who’s so greedy, he’s going to undo forty-one losses?) </p><p>The dazzled crowd surges into a roar when they strap a bomb onto her, and she dances to the rhythm of car crashes, shattering lights and the frantic beeps of her timer, before an express owl and a moon penguin diffuses it ten seconds before it goes off. The directors do not notice when they do, too busy arguing with each other.</p><p>At the end she wins, of course. Time magic is a woozy to recover from, and she figures that she should give them some space. So she takes both time pieces back to her spaceship, leaving the unconscious birds behind her. </p><p>She likes them, but this is the last time she gets involved in the show business.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Boss takes one look at her battered, bruised face and straight up panics. “Little girl! Are you okay? Why does your face look like shi-”</p><p>“You look terrible,” Boris cuts in, holding his hands out for her. “Like a car ran over you. What happened?”</p><p>She dumps her backpack onto him and wobbles unsteadily on her feet, catching herself by his offered hands. Her legs feel like jelly and twenty-thousand ants gnawing on them simultaneously; her neck and shoulders are sore, and her butt hurts from the amount of times she’s tripped backwards just in time to dodge a swinging disco ball. “Eh. ‘S nothin’. Just… a couple of stuff that happened.”</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Yeah,” She says, and stumbles towards the tea table, flopping down on her favorite beanie bag. It smells like cupcakes and day-old soda. Her stomach makes a rumbling growl, but the idea of a nap right now sounds better, and she doesn’t think she has the energy to bother making something in her kitchen.</p><p>Boris raises an eyebrow at her the same time as Boss does. then huffs. “Wait here,” He tells her, then grabs Boss, and turns to amble towards somewhere, she thinks. She’s not too sure. Her vision is getting blurry. She settles into the beanbag instead, grimacing at the way her thighs are throbbing.</p><p>Just as she’s about to nod off, she’s startled awake at a loud ringing clink. Her forming snot bubble pops with a crack as she blearily rubs at her eyes, then her vision clears when she sits up to look at what the ruckus is.</p><p>“Eat up!” Boss booms at her. Then Boris sets a bowl between the fork and spoon on the table before her, and she forgets about everything else in the world.</p><p>It smells amazing. It smells <em>better</em> than amazing.</p><p>Her hand wobbles when she picks up the spoon. Most of the soup sloshes out because of that, but on the second try she actually get some into her mouth-</p><p>And <em>oh. </em>She can’t think for a second, and just sits there, eyes wide. The clear soup is <em>delicious, </em>slightly sweet and smooth, settling hot in her belly and warming her up instantly. Upon a closer look (and lazy scooping) there are pieces of white meat, and some yellow and orange chunks in it; the former soft on her tongue and the latter savory and sweet. She spoons up a second bite, and then a third, then a fourth.</p><p>“Tasty, eh?” Boss says. “Of course it is. My recipes, after all!”</p><p>She makes a noise at him, mouth too full to snark at him. He’s right, though. She’s never tasted anything as good as this soup -- not even her cups of freeze-dried noodles or space-chips!</p><p>(Not that she’ll tell him that, though.)</p><p>Boris tugs at her hands gently, shaking his head. “Hat child should slow down. Bones in fish, very dangerous. Soup is not going anywhere.”</p><p>She does, and later, after she’s shown her appreciation for them by licking her bowl <em>and </em>spoon clean, she sags into her beanbag, feeling warm and satisfied and slightly drowsy. Boris clears the table and excuses himself to the kitchen, humming a song about dishwashers and soap.</p><p>“What’s that?” She ask, curious. It’ll be nice to try it again, someday.</p><p>Boss looks up from where he was glaring at her roomba, and says: “Is broth, from motherland. Ukha made with fish, potatoes and carrots.” Then there’s a slight tension to his expression as he eyes her. “Why?”</p><p>Ukha. She tastes the funny-sounding word in her mouth, committing it to memory. “I like it,” She tells him, sincerely and truthfully. “It’s really good.”</p><p>She didn’t think he could puff up any bigger but he <em>does, </em>all the suspicion melting from him as he grins at her, mustache bobbing. “Pah, if hat girl thinks this is tasty- wait till you try beef stroganoff and Pirozhki. Your tongue will fall off when you do!”</p><p>“Tongues cannot fall off from delicious food, boss.” Boris calls from the kitchen. </p><p>Boss descends into a series of spluttering before yelling back in that funny dialect he has, unintelligible and fast to her ears. All it does is to ignite loud laughter from Boris instead.</p><p>She settles back to fall asleep. Maybe she’ll look up what stroganoff is on the local net, later.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She has a lot of free time, now. And it’s making her jittery.</p><p>As much as she wants to go looking for the next time pieces already, she, unfortunately, doesn’t know where to start. Her hat’s magic has its limits, and the ship is still working hard on finding them, radar beeping as it scans through the many regions that make up this world, trying to detect the time pieces’ unique signatures. This planet has <em>way</em> too many places, sheesh.</p><p>In the meantime, Boris had found out her pantry is lacking in many, many vital foodstuffs, so he makes it his personal mission to bring her groceries every two weeks. She’s introduced to no less than five brands of milk, bundles of vegetables and fruits she’s never seen before, and at least twenty different canned foods that Boss spends an hour lecturing her on. </p><p>And speaking of Boss -- the dinner from before seems to have opened the floodgates of sorts, because he starts making her meals; with him perched on Boris’ shoulders and barking instructions at him. He’s incredibly offended when he discovers she only has dried-noodles on her spaceship, and vows that as long as he’s here, ‘hat child should be eating better and more responsibly.’ </p><p>She doesn’t mind; most of the time she’s too busy shoveling his latest creations into her mouth during dinner. The only thing Boris and her has to put up with is his bragging.</p><p>They settle into a routine like this.</p><p>It’s nice, in a way.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She drags Boss along for the ride as she explores the rest of Mafia Town, to his utmost dismay. Boris had whole-heartedly supported and agreed with her, declaring that since Boss is currently on a doctor-prescribed break while his scientist team work to repair the damage to his body, he should find the time to bask in more sunlight instead of being cooped up in here. </p><p>He spits and curses at her from his perch in her backpack and shrieks like one of his goons sighting a ghost whenever she goes bouncing on telephone lines, yelling for her to slow down as she races across the roofs and buildings. She wins a bet against him when she gathers all the lost vault codes, raiding his stashes of treasure and finally discovers the last time piece he’d forgotten in the golden one.</p><p>“You sure you don’t want some?” She glances briefly at the simmering jar beside her, licking her ice-cream. The afternoon sun beats mercilessly down on them. A crow busts into flames three rooftops away.</p><p>Boss sulks in his glass prison, and pointedly does not reply.</p><p>“Lookie,” She teases. “They have a discount on triple-rum-raisin scoop just for today.”</p><p>“...FINE.”</p><p>(By sheer dumb luck they end up stumbling into the leftover time rifts scattered across the town. She recovers three more time pieces, just like that.)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Two months after the whole fiasco with the birds and awards, she jerks awake from her nap to a ship-wide announcement, warning alarms blaring and ringing at full force.</p><p>“LASSIE!” Shrieks a familiar, cracking voice, muffled by the racket. “HELLO? IS ANYONE IN ‘ERE? HOW THE PECK DO WE TURN THIS OFF-”</p><p>She almost tripped in her haste to get dressed. The alarms shut itself off the moment she busts into the control room, grin plastered wide on her face as she looks upon her unexpected visitors. “Conductor! And DJ!”</p><p>“Hey kiddo,” The owl waves weakly at her from where he’s wedged between the glass panel and wooden boards, a perfect imitation of a stuffed animal dangling from mechanical claws. It looks painful. “Mind helping me out ‘ere?”</p><p>Outside, DJ Grooves gives her a cheerful wave, then scowls at him. “Now what did I tell you about breaking in without permission, hmmm?”</p><p>“Ain’t nobody asked you, peck neck!”</p><p>It took several tries, but with the combined efforts of DJ Grooves and her, they manage to squeeze the Conductor out of his predicament; she falls backwards on her butt as he goes sailing with a yell through the air and crashes into the carpet, which then skates five feet across the floor with him on it until he knocks into a pile of boxes, effectively burying him. Immediately, he starts swearing up a storm in bird slang. She hopes the ship security caught it on cameras so she can laugh at it later.</p><p>In contrast, DJ Grooves enters with far more dignity and gracefully than the owl did, shutting the panel behind him with a gentle nudge of his heels.</p><p>“Darlin’,” He smiles at her, eyes soft. “Have you been doing well? You look just as stunning as ever- is that a new hat?”</p><p>It is! She beams at him, happy that he noticed her ice hat. Happy that he looks good, too; feathers looking much healthier and taken care of, the shine in his eyes way more chipper than what she saw all those weeks ago, free from the influence of time magic. </p><p>Those same eyes immediately droops with something akin to regret and shame. “Listen, darlin-”</p><p>“Ah-bup-bup,” She shushes him, holds a finger against his beak and like a gentleman he shuts it with a click. She tugs at his flippers, slowly but surely coaxing him towards the table. “Sit down first!”</p><p>Boris had recently bought some new flavours of tea for her. Five, in fact, sitting neatly in color-coded tins in the kitchen cupboards, and she intends to brew some for her guests. A mini-celebration of their recovery. </p><p>“But-” DJ Grooves protests, but he allows her to push him down into a cushion. “We have to tell you something importa-”</p><p>He cuts himself short. </p><p>Then:</p><p>“Darlin’,” Says the penguin. “Why do you have a jar of eyeballs and… is that goo?”</p><p>The Conductor chooses this moment to stumble over after extracting himself from the pile of boxes. He peers down at the jar, sitting innocuously in the center of the table, and taps at the glass with a single outstretched claw. “Ain’t no judgement here, lassie. Ah’ve kept worse things when I was a wee lad-”</p><p>“Of course you did,” says DJ Grooves, drily. </p><p>“-but this is disgusting.” Clink clink, goes his claw. “What an ugly mustach-”</p><p>“Hey!” Boss bellows, bouncing up in his place.</p><p>“ARGH-” The Conductor screeches, jumping onto DJ Grooves at the same time the penguin screams, wobbling on his heels as he struggles to steady himself with a scrambling owl in his flippers. “What in the NAME of tarnation-”</p><p>“-how is it even talking-”</p><p>“-JAR LURKIN’, JAM IMPOSTIN’, NASTY-”</p><p>“-who’re you calling ugly, you piece of-”</p><p>“-beGONE, foul creature! Lest you meet the bottom of me boot-”</p><p>She sighs, pulls out her hat, taps into the inner magic of her time pieces, and snaps a finger.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Later, after she’s introduced everyone to each other (which means convincing the Conductor that no, Boss is not a demon summoned from the depths of Hell, and convincing Boss that yes, said Scotsman is an owl, thank you very much, please don’t question him about it unless he wants a punch for his efforts. And yes, the penguin is wearing star-shaped sunglasses and looks absolutely fabulous in them), she leaves them to each other’s company for a few moments as she fetches the tea.</p><p>After all, spending time together is a sure-fire way to make friends. Mostly. It is a proven fact. Boris and her had case-studies dedicated to this topic.</p><p>“Will you all behave after I let you go?” She asks her guests, pouring each of them a cup of piping hot earl grey.</p><p>Three sets of eyes flick to her in union; the Conductor, boot in hand and raised to strike; behind him, DJ Grooves is holding him back by locking his flippers under the owl’s arms, half-lifting him into the air; and finally, Mafia Boss in a mid-jump backwards, avoiding the incoming boot. They stand like this together, frozen in time and space, like a funny-looking sculpture.</p><p>Well, it’s as close as a yes she can get. So she shrugs, then snaps her fingers again, releasing the Time Stop. The three of them crash into the floor with a groan.</p><p>“...Now that was something new,” DJ Grooves groans, adjusting his sunglasses.</p><p>“Nah,” She grins. “I just don’t use it often enough.”</p><p>(Not that she can, nor all the time. Only in close proximity to the time pieces, unfortunately.) </p><p>“Please, fer the sake of my heart,” The Conductor shakily crawls into his seat, putting his boot beside his tea. “Give us a peckin’ warnin’ next time. Or no more next times- I dunnae think I can process wha’ just happened.”</p><p>Boss simply groans from where he’s face and jar down on the table. </p><p>“Now,” She giggles, clapping her hands together, and a deck of cards drops onto the table. “Who wants to play twenty-one pons?”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>By the end of the game -- that consists of the Conductor flipping the table after losing seven consecutive times -- the both of them, regrettably, had to leave. There were movies to shoot, schedules to plan and bombs of order. The life of a director is a busy, busy thing, Grooves told her, pulling the disgruntled Conductor out with him.</p><p>This however, to her absolute delight, turns out to not be a one time thing.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The birds start visiting her every other week, and she’s not sure if it’s by luck or agreement that they show up alternatively, with DJ Grooves popping by on Mondays and Wednesdays while the Conductor prefers Fridays and Saturdays. On the days when they do show up together, they argue right outside her spaceship until she breaks them up long enough to drag them in, then continue their bickering right at the table.</p><p>Boris tells her that they remind him of the characters in his romance novel. She nods sagely at him, because she does see what he’s talking about.</p><p>She starts to learn a lot of things about them; she learns that DJ Grooves always has an extra pair of sunglasses hidden in his afro, and that he has a whole closet dedicated to those high platform heels he adores. She learns that the Conductor is so bad at card games because he is essentially blind, and can’t tell apart written words on paper unlike physical objects. She learns that he knows twenty-five different animal slangs to swear in but yet doesn’t know about human ones.</p><p>“I know six alone thanks to how much he insults me everyday,” Grooves whispers to her, eyes crinkled in good humor as he covers the both of her ears with his flippers. Across the table, the owl is engaged in a swearing match with Boss.</p><p>“Will you teach me some?” </p><p>“Goodness, no.” He laughs, then winks. “Not until you’re older, darlin’.”</p><p>Grooves brings her a pair of sunglasses (UFO Shaped! Sweet!) when she complimented his one day, and from then onwards begins bringing her presents from time to time -- sparkly outfits and dresses, fashionable hats, colouring books and crayon sets. He sneaks her goldfish crackers and fish-shaped gummies whenever Boss and Boris isn’t looking, and on the off-chance he gets caught he shows up with fresh tuna, salmon, and a variety of fish the next time as an apology to the both of them. </p><p>(He winks at her when Boss grumbles under his breath but accepts the bribe. The man has such an obvious soft spot for high-quality seafood that he fails so spectacularly to hide.)</p><p>The Conductor, on the other hand, catches the penguin in the act when he was gifting her a box of glitter pens by accident, and the scrunch he makes with his beak is so memorable she prints the image out from her security tapes. And then <em>he</em> starts bringing her trinkets too -- from storybooks to toys like bubble blowers and teddy bears. The gift pile in the corner of the living room triples in size thanks to their combined efforts.</p><p>He gets her a ‘phone’ one day; the kind that flips open and has a keychain hole and is small enough to fit in her pockets, but hilariously doesn’t know what to do with it. The both of them spent three days trying to figure out the manual until DJ Grooves swings by, walking in on their sad display. “Why did you buy her this, then?” He asks, perplexed. </p><p>“None ah yer business!” Conductor snarks in reflex, then crosses his arms, looking away. “Thought the lass would like it. Ain’t this what most kids are into these days?” </p><p>There’s something off to his voice that she couldn’t quite pin down, but…</p><p>“<em>Oh, </em>darling.” Grooves shakes his head, a small fond smile on his beak. Then shows them both how to actually use the phone, running through its functions and explaining to them with the patience of a saint.</p><p>He teaches her how to take a selfie later, and that’s how she ends up with thirty-two pictures of her making silly faces in her album, with the Conductor scowling and wearing sparkly hats in the background. The new clothes he brought with him makes for a fun fashion show.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>With their frequent visits, lunch, dinner and snacks now expands with two more portions. It’s a great thing until Boris tells them he has to return to the HQ to help out. He promises he will still visit, but this means no more cooking. Not when Boss is without a body.</p><p>“No problem!” She tells them, then slaps Boss with a Time Piece. </p><p>Her force isn’t enough to break it, but it does poofs him back in his old body. He sits, staring at his arms and wriggles his fingers, bewildered, and says: “What?”</p><p>“You’re welcome.” She grins. “It’s only temporary though, but this means you can still make that stew you’ve been thinking of!”</p><p>He goes absolutely hog-wild the next evening, and soaks up the compliments from Grooves (“<em>Oh </em>my, this tastes absolutely fantabulous, darlin’!”) and Conductor (“Tch, this ain’t so bad.”) like a sponge. It’s worth the five burnt eggs he sacrificed that morning getting used to his motor functions.</p><p>“Is that what ye look like in the first place?” The owl cocks his head, then smirks. “Thought ye were fakin’ the ‘stache.”</p><p>“Don’t be rude,” Grooves chides.</p><p>Boss laughs, and rolls his sleeves up. “Why don’t you come here and see if it’s real, shorty? If you can reach it!” He taunts. </p><p>A beat, then the Conductor grins, all teeth. “Gladly!” He declares, then launches himself at him. The resulting tussle lasts for ten minutes, and ends with them both covered in carpet burns, roaring with laughter and good-natured ribbing. </p><p>(Boss bakes her russian honey cake the next day while the magic is still active. It tastes <em>great.</em>)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Grooves catches her sneaking out of Dead Birds Studios one night, time pieces in her backpack. Sheepishly, she explains to him about fixing time rifts and that <em>pleasedon’tbemadsorrythatIdidn’task. </em>He takes her out for ice-cream in the nearby city instead.</p><p>“No hard work goes unrewarded, darlin’.” He tells her. Then flicks his gaze at the melting ice-cream in her bowl. “Just don’t tell those brutes back on your spaceship about tonight, hmm? There’s only so much tuna I can bribe him with.”</p><p>She buys him the gaudiest, shiniest disco bling-patterned sunglasses with the pons she saved up the next time she’s in Mafia Town. When she presents it to him, he thanks her in a choked-up voice, like he’s about to start bawling right there and then.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When the Conductor isn’t busy arguing with Grooves or working on his movies, he reveals himself to be a great storyteller -- which makes sense considering his profession, but still catches her off guard. He never seems to run out of stories to keep her entertained; from myths to folklore to tales of his younger, rowdier days, always happy to share each time he visits. </p><p>He’s a good listener too, allowing her to talk at him for hours while he’s fiddling with something, be it his scripts or polishing his knives and yet keeps up with the conversation almost effortlessly, never breaking his attention from her. It’s one of the reasons she likes him for.</p><p>“Y’know, lassie,” The Conductor calls from where he is, idly fiddling with the chess set in front of him. Distantly, she recalls Grooves making a move on it when he was here visiting last week. “Don’t yer have any other board games? No offense, but cards can be gettin’ a wee bit repetitive.”</p><p>“What’s board games?” She chirps. The words don't ring a bell to her. What kind of games do you play with wooden boards?</p><p>The owl whips his neck a hundred and eighty degrees back at her. “WHAT?!” He squawks. “What do ye mean ‘what’s board games’? You have chess here, don’t ye?”</p><p>“Is that what it is?” She makes a face. Boris had brought it with him one day, and she never actually really understood how to play it. Grown-up games are hard.</p><p>“Yes! One of ‘em, at least.” He says, the rest of his body twisting around. “Don’t ye have others?”</p><p>“No. Just that, I guess.”</p><p>The Conductor frowns. “That won’t do,” He tells her. “I cannae believe you lot are missin’ out on ‘em.”</p><p>The next time he visits, he’s carrying a huge flat box with him, tucked under his arms. “Let the master show ye,” He cackles with glee, pouring the contents onto the table like a waterfall.</p><p>He teaches her Candyland, Snakes and Ladders, then harder ones like The Game of Life. There’s always something new each week, and she gleefully ropes the rest into it. Monopoly started no less than five fights between him, Boss and Grooves, verbal jabs and insults plentiful each session. Predictably, the Conductor’s favorite is a game called Ticket to Ride, where you play to claim as many railroads as you can as your character travels across the country.</p><p>It is also the board game for tonight; an extended, limited edition from the owl’s personal collection. The map is so big it takes four whole tables to support.</p><p>“I’ve connected the rails!” Declares Boss, raising his hands triumphantly. </p><p>“Ye didn’t connect shit!” Yells the Conductor. He reaches over the table with a stick to push the offending railway car pieces into its rightful places, then draws a card from the pile. And starts cursing. Whoops, guess it’s her turn now.</p><p>DJ Grooves picks her up so she can place her own train pieces, claiming a good number of routes and points in doing so -- and she’s getting very close to completing her route.</p><p>“Attagirl!” The Conductor whistles. “Knew ye had it in ya! Yer almost as good as me grandchildren!”</p><p>It is at this moment when her ship alarms blare, plunging the room into flashing red lights. In her haste to wriggle out of DJ Grooves’ flippers she topples them both over instead, scattering train pieces and cards.</p><p>The locations of the next time pieces have been found.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Here is a list of things she dislikes about Subcon Forest:</p>
<ul>
<li>the spiders.</li>
<li>why are there so many spiders.</li>
<li>it smells like burnt charcoal on one end and wet farts on the other, and the combination of the two right in the middle is… ugh.</li>
<li>it gets really cold in certain places and her thin cape isn’t enough.</li>
<li>she always gets the feeling that she’s being watched.</li>
</ul><p>The forest is shrouded in a perpetual night and it makes her miss her nightlight by her bed. And the lack of light means getting lost a lot. She’s lucky that she has her hat and its magic to pull her along, with nothing but the dim glow of mushrooms guiding her path. The woods like to play with her, only that she doesn’t know its ever-changing rules. It’s frustrating, in a way.</p><p>None of her friends takes the news of her adventures well. It seems that Subcon Forest has a reputation outside of it, stretching far and wide; never go in there, but if you must -- never look back behind you, keep your name to yourself, and for the love of god stay on the path.</p><p>“Ye should take a knife with ya!” The Conductor tells her, then squawks when Grooves yoinks it out of his hands, keeping it out of his reach. Not for long, because he dives into the penguin with a yell, crashing the both of them into the floor. “No knives!”  DJ Grooves shouts from where he is, later, sitting on the squirming and screeching owl. “Text me if you run into trouble, darling!”</p><p>“Knives do not work on ghosts,” Boss says with the utmost sincerity of someone who has tried. Boris nods along with him. “Let Mafia cook holy water for you instead.”</p><p>“Boiling garlic in water isn’t gonna work, yer buffoon!”</p><p>She follows the advice, but nothing tells her what to do when you step into a trap and meet a shadow spirit.</p><p>The Snatcher is loud and dramatic and utterly way too smug for his own good. She’s terrified of him, sure -- anyone would if a sixteen feet tall shadow demon threatens to kill you, makes you sign a contract and steals your soul all in one evening. But the effect is slightly ruined when she shakes his contract at him, and tells him she can’t read it.</p><p>“...What do you mean you can’t read?” He repeats incredulously.</p><p>“I <em>can</em> read,” She scowls. “Just not grown-up words. Or long ones. The letters you use are different from mine.”</p><p>(See, she’s <em>been</em> learning and getting used to their language through their game nights back on her spaceship and even during the weeks when she was still neck-deep in reading scripts for the Conductor’s movies, but she exclusively relies on the adults explaining to her on what she can and should do instead of what the written words mean, and now it’s coming back to bite her in the butt. Maybe she should had done that in the first place.)</p><p>The Snatcher squints at the contract, then plucks it from her fingers. “Eh, fine. I guess I can change the words to something easier.”</p><p>“Can’t you just tell me what to do?” She whines.</p><p>“And make it too easy for you? HA!” He cackles. With a snap of his claws the contract poofs back into her hands, the words on it simpler than before. “No minion of mine is staying illiterate under my watch. Guess you’re gonna have to put in some elbow grease, kiddo!”</p><p>What a jerk, she thinks.</p><p>She makes sure to fool around Subcon Forest later on. With the contracts comes protection, and the forest parts way for her under the Snatcher’s magic -- it’s too bad there’s no reception for her phone here, or she’d spammed Grooves with pictures. </p><p>(It takes five whole days before the jerk cracks and tells her straight up what to do. Take that, creepy ghost!)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She dies a lot of times doing Snatcher’s chores.</p><p>Statues ambushes her when her back is turned; the first time one shoulder-checks her from behind she thinks she hears something crack. Sometimes she misjudges the distances as she’s swinging from tree to tree, or have a cherry bomb blow up in her face. In the swamp, heavy hands drag her down by her legs, and the water tastes like slime and sludge as she drowns.</p><p>Suffice to say, it gets really tiring with each rewind. </p><p>On the bright side, the Dwellers and Subconites are kind to her. There never seems to be less than ten of them whenever she’s hanging out in Snatcher’s tree hollow, the spirits happy to keep her company. They tell her all sorts of stories and jokes, and play knucklebones with her using tiny cherries and mushrooms. It’s been a while since we had another kid as a visitor, one tells her cheerfully.</p><p>Meanwhile, back on her spaceship, her friends get along well enough in between the times she’s away in the forest -- she has walked in on their antics more than once; harmless mostly, and loud.</p><p>(“Bonnie ‘ere has been wit’ me fer over ten years,” The conductor brags, twirling his beloved knife in his fingers, then stabs it into the table.</p><p>Boss nods at that. “She is beautiful,” He says, twisting his mustache. He eyes the knife with an appreciative look. “Can see you took good care of her.”</p><p>“Of course I do! But enough ‘bout me,” The owl grins. “What ‘bout you? Any ladies?”</p><p>Boss throws his head back and laughs, long and loud. “Yes!”</p><p>Then with a flourish and a twist of his wrist, he summons two gigantic cleavers, pulling them out from thin air, and stabs the both of them right next to Bonnie. “This is my Natascha- and Svetlana! Both my pride and joy!”</p><p>“Oh dear me,” Grooves sighs to her. “Now there’s two of them.”)</p><p>It’s nice having company, she thinks. When she shows up caked in mud and singed clothes, windswept hair from riding a scooter, DJ Grooves ushers her into the bathroom and takes care of her dirty clothes. When she returns shivering and caked in snow, fingers blue after escaping the creepy mansion and its scary mistress, Boss makes her hot coco to warm herself up as the Conductor sits with her, cranking up stories after stories until she stops trembling. She brings the candies Boss gives her back to the forest, and shares them with the Subconites.</p><p>She complains to them about the Snatcher, too. Can they believe he lost her soul to a toilet of all things?</p><p>“Oof,” Winces Grooves. “That sounds… very unfortunate, darlin’.”</p><p>“It is,” She tells him. “The smell was so bad- I’ll never forget about it.”</p><p>The Conductor nods sympathetically at her, then cracks a smirk. “Are ye sure it isn’t cause yer a lil’ shit?”</p><p>“Darlin’!”</p><p>“Yeah, I guess,” She sticks her tongue out at him. “It’s ‘cause I learned from you.”</p><p>“Wha- ooooohh, that’s a good one!!”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Then, as it happens inevitably, she fights the Snatcher.</p><p>(“They fell in <em>my </em>forest, kid!” He sneers at her. “They belong to <em>ME.”)</em></p><p>She sees it coming, from a mile away. See it in the calculative look in his eyes, an old, old sort of desperation and yearning gleaming in them as he holds the glittering time pieces, shiny capsules of potential. Sees it from bits and pieces in the time rifts; a forgotten, tragic tale a lifetime ago, born from jealousy and ends in ice. </p><p>The time piece latches onto him, and doesn’t let go.</p><p>He throws her around like a ragdoll for the first couple of times, hits her hard enough that she bruises in purple and blacks, burns her with sizzling, explosive fire spells that lights the arena ablaze in a glory of colours, the magic scorching into her very bones. She dies seven times -- the most out from her friends -- before she memorises his patterns and shatters a vial of blue onto the cheating, lying jerk. Then it takes another six tries before she finally, <em>finally </em>beats him at his own game.</p><p>He has the gall to try and make her go away after everything, and time magic influence or not she thinks she ought to beat him up again until he comes to his senses. In the end, though, she changes the terms of his contract instead so they can be BFFs. Even if he’s offering her soul and time pieces back.</p><p>As if he can get rid of her that easily, ha.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>So it goes like this:</p><p>She goes back to Subcon Forest again, and again. And again. To the Snatcher’s pure, undiluted chagrin.</p><p>She spends most of her time at the tree hollow she’d deemed as her secret base, filling it up with her stuff -- storybooks and plushies, train sets and board games. The Subconites peer at her from afar as she entertains herself for days until they finally caved in with a wave and some well-placed candy in sight; the cherry-flavored ones that they particularly enjoys. When the Snatcher demands her reasons she knocks herself on her head and feigns obliviousness, telling him that she’s just back to pick up her books and toys that she’d forgotten to take home last week. </p><p>(What he doesn’t know is that she’s doing it on purpose, and made sure to hide her stuff in every nook and cranny she can find. Then rinse and repeat.)</p><p>“Why,” The Snatcher groans at her.</p><p>She merely gives him a cheerful wave from where she’s sitting, surrounded by a group of spirits engrossed in her game, and rolls her dice. It lands on a six to a chorus of groans, cheers and claps, and she reaches out to place her figure on a +$50000 panel.</p><p>“I tried to kill you.” He stressed. “Several times, in fact. That’s more than once, twice. THRICE.” He sinks into his couch with a scowl, crossing his arms. “Any sane person wouldn’t had came back- is that it? Is that what’s wrong with you? A screw loose somewhere in that tiny head of yours?”</p><p>“Whatever you say, BFF.” She laughs at his misery. Then holds up a card over her head towards him. “What does this say?”</p><p>“‘Excommunication.’” He replies automatically, squinting. “What kind of damn game…?”</p><p>“Cool! Thanks!”</p><p>“And for the last time- STOP calling me that.”</p><p>Three days in he catches onto her little game; she dances around his questions and it escalates into extreme hide-and-seek for the next three months. It’s fine -- she finds better and better spots to stash her items; from cracks in tree barks to dug holes underneath the floorboards, and the slit she made by digging out the stuffing from the underside of his favorite couch (that he still has no idea about, whoops). </p><p>The Snatcher retaliates by making his minions deliver the ones he found back to her spaceship, wrapped completely in industrial strength duct tape that she spends hours on removing.</p><p>“Pardon me language,” The Conductor says, peeling away a layer of grey to yet <em>another </em>layer. “But what in the absolute fresh Pecking hell, lassie. What did ye <em>do?”</em></p><p>Behind her, the Subconite stifles a giggle and pats her. “Sorry about that,” He says, sounding absolutely not sorry at all. “Boss’ orders.”</p><p>“Did you actually wrap that up by yourself?” She asks incredulously. They’ve gone through at least eight layers already; just how many more are there? Where did they find this much duct tape?</p><p>“Nah,” The spirit says. “Boss did most of the work. I just added the pretty packaging at the end.” Then he peers up to her, single eye glittering. “You’re not gonna stop, ain’t cha? Please don’t- it’s been a while since we had some fun with the boss like this.”</p><p>At that, she scoffs. Silly Snatcher; as if this will stop her that easily. A plan is already piecing itself together in her mind, and she looks at the spirit considering, head tilted.</p><p>“Say,” She tells him. “What do you feel about cookies and milk? We’ve got extras in the fridge.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She convinces the Subconites who visit, each one at a time, to stay on the ship way past bedtime; playing board games and dress up with DJ Grooves. Conductor had been surprised at first, but he quickly warmed up to the idea of telling stories to a bunch of ghost kids, sitting starry-eyed and excited around him. Boss initially was disheartened when they refused his food (they hadn’t needed to eat for over a hundred years, sorry old man), but perks back up once he learns that they like small candies, and took to making sweets like a duck to water. He gives each of them a bundle to take back to the forest at the end of the day.</p><p>And obviously, word spreads to the rest of the kids that <em>Hey you should totally ditch your chores and come visit that hat kid’s cool spaceship! They even have free candy!</em></p><p>Which worked in her favour, because by the thirty-fifth minion the Snatcher finally cracks, and he shows up on her spaceship <em>himself</em>.</p><p>“Look, kiddo,” Came the disembodied voice, then the lights in her room -- and the entire ship -- flickers once, twice, then fizzes out in a pop. It snaps back on the next second, and she’s looking at the Snatcher; tall, dark and ominous, his usual grin sharper than she remembers. “First you disregard what I’ve told you, then you lure my minions away from their duties- AND now you’re making me play mailman?! Just how many times are you going to-”</p><p>He paused, looking upon her peculiar group; an owl, a penguin, a little girl and a jar of floating eyeballs playing a game of checkers. He blinks, for once at a loss of words.</p><p>The first one to break the silence was the Conductor. “Who the hell are ye?” He snaps.</p><p>The Snatcher squints at him. “Who am I? I should be the one asking here! Now who the hell are <em>you?”</em></p><p>“I asked ye first!”</p><p>“And I’m asking you second,” He sneers.</p><p>Oh no. She reaches a hand to the Conductor, but before she can slip in and cut the conflict short, the owl shoots back: “Go peck yerself.”</p><p>“Oooh, a little forward here, aren’t you?” The Snatcher guffaws, then leers at him. “Come peck me yourself, coward.”</p><p>She quickly puts herself between them before it gets worse. Behind her, the Conductor starts choking on his drink, spluttering, as DJ Grooves (“Oh my,” he says. “How scandalous.”) reaches over to pound on his back. Boss hadn’t stopped making those weird croaking noises with the back of his throat. “They’re my friends!” She chirps. “Why’re you here, Snatch?”</p><p>“Because some little pipsqueak,” he scowls, “Keeps littering my forest with her garbage! Do you have any idea just <em>how</em> many books-” Here, he pinches the bridge of his nonexistence nose. “And the toys! They’re a horrible distraction to my minions! I’ll have to outlaw them all at this rate!”</p><p>“Cranky because you can’t find my hiding spots, huh?”</p><p>“I’m feeling the irresistible urge to tear your face off right now, kid-”</p><p>“Now hold on a second, darling.” Grooves pulls her back, and gives the ghost an once over, sounding thoroughly confused. “Is that- is he who I think he is?”</p><p>She grins.</p><p>“What!?” The Conductor squawks, finally finding his voice. “That’s the guy? The one yer been tellin’ us all ‘bout?”</p><p>She grins wider.</p><p>“The buffoon who keeps doin’ all that,” He clears his throat once, then: “AHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! FOOOOOOOOoooool… nonsense?! That’s ‘im?”</p><p>“Yee haw!” She tells him, impressed at his imitation. </p><p>“The bastard who went an’ lost yer soul tae that toilet ‘cause he’s too dumb tae do his job?”</p><p>“Yee haw!”</p><p>“The utter dumbass tha-”</p><p>“ALRIGHT! WE GET IT, THAT’S ENOUGH.” Snatcher hisses, in a tone that rattles the lights overhead. “What in the world have you been telling them- you know what, no. I don’t care. I can’t be bothered to care.” He snaps a claw, then out pops a pile of books and board games. They crash into the floor in a clutter of thuds, and he looms over her, eyes narrowing. “Just take your things and never leave them lying around in the woods again- because this is the last time I’m telling you before I burn them all in a bonfire. Do I make myself clear?”</p><p>She flashes a smile at him, putting as much innocence as she can into it. Of course, Mr. Snatcher. No, Mr. Snatcher, she’s not trying to fool him by giving him a non-verbal, ambiguous expression that he’ll take as an answer.</p><p>He scoffs. “Nice try, kiddo. But I’m not falling for that again. It’s a yes or no this time, so-” He lowers himself just enough so he can look at her in her eyes. “What’s it gonna be?”</p><p>Drats. “Okay.” She says. </p><p>“Try again.”</p><p>“Okay, yes, <em>fine</em>. I won’t leave my stuff in your forest anymore.” She rolls her eyes, crossing her fingers behind her.</p><p>This seems to satisfy him. “Good,” He says, “I’d draw up a contract- since hell knows if you’ll keep your promise, you little heathen- but three eye-witnesses here is as good as that. And speaking of them-”</p><p>The Snatcher circles their table, shadows twisting and trailing behind him as he eyes them, one by one. Then, he stops just a little off from where he started from, and leans down right into the Conductor’s personal space, sneering at him.</p><p>“I would have killed you for that, y’know? Plucked your feathers or popped your neck like a chicken, even, if it weren’t for the fact that you don’t have a soul.” He hissed. “So consider yourself lucky- and watch your beak next time, hmmm?”</p><p>The owl -- who has been strangely quiet for some time now -- did something rather alarming. He laughed in the Snatcher’s face.</p><p>Then he twisted his knife right between the ghost’s eyes.</p><p>“Oh my!” Exclaims Grooves, pulling her to the side the same time the Conductor starts hurling a stream of insults in an accent so thick she has no idea what to make of it.</p><p>The Snatcher rears back; not from pain, but shock, his expression stunned and dares she says it- slightly impressed, before the familiar burn of indignant anger clouds over and he <em>snarls. </em>He slams both of his claws into the floor, fire magic crackling in the air as he looms over them all, eyes glowering. “Why you little-”</p><p>It is at this moment when the limit to Boss’ fragile composure breaks, because he immediately smashes a bottle of holy water into Snatcher and shrieks, high and terrified.</p><p>Everything descends into chaos, afterwards.</p><p>(It involves a lot of yelling, screaming, knives and more burnt carpets, and that giant disco ball Grooves brought onto her ship. But that’s another story for another time.)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Tch. I suppose I’m a little impressed at your moxie, despite how stupid it was.” Snatcher tells them begrudgingly, after the shit that went down. “Not everybody can pull a knife on a ghost like you did, I’ll give you that.”</p><p>“Ah appreciate it, peckface. That punch of yers ain’t so bad, too.”</p><p>“Oh shut it. And you! Did you seriously boil some garlic and call it ‘holy water’? You know that’s not how it works, right?”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After that, well.</p><p>The Snatcher shows up again and again to drop another one of her misplaced items (that he’s still digging out from her hiding spots), each time purposely timing his arrivals when she’s busy exploring the Alphine Skyline, much to her chagrin. She has to rely on Boss’ Ghost sense to catch him in the act, gleefully basking in the irritated tsk the ghost makes when he sees her. </p><p>One thing she comes to learn is that he really, really likes making dramatic entrances; flickering lights, bursts of magic, anything for the shock and wow factor. The Snatcher finds sheer joy in spooking them all as if he’s ticking a bucket list; especially Boss and poor, unfortunate Boris who was visiting that one weekend. Grooves, lucky him, had quickly grown used to the spooking attempts, much to the Ghost’s displeasure, and has taken to jotting down notes for his next movie.</p><p><em>(“I’ll be expecting compensation and a written contract regarding copyrights if you make those movies!” </em>Came the crackling voice of the Snatcher, somewhere off-screen from the camera.  <em>“And remember- I want them in triplicate!”</em></p><p>On her phone, Grooves sighs and waves a flipper his way, flicking a glance at her. <em>“Triplicate, he says. Can you believe him, darling? He’s even more meticulous than our resident grandpa with his scripts here.”</em></p><p>There’s an<em> “Oi- Ah heard that!”</em> coming from the left of Grooves, and she stifles her giggle. “Remember to check your contract! He likes to-” She puffs out her cheeks, trying to find the right word to describe the Snatcher. Cheat? Lie? Those doesn’t sound nice. “-play with his words?”</p><p>There’s a distant, familiar scream off-screen again, and she catches the Snatcher’s voice in bits and pieces:<em> “-eal. You show me that trick you mafia goons do with chemistry and science- specifically, the ones you used to make your bombs, and I’ll give you back your original body. How’s tha-”</em></p><p>Grooves rolls his eyes.<em> “Of course he does. Thank you, darling- How’s the weather over there, by the way? Are you well?”</em></p><p>She spares a glance to her surroundings; white clouds and clear, sunny skies, the creaking wood beneath her feet as she breathes in the crisp warm breeze. And when she looks up- thirty red-eyed crows stares back at her, a canopy of rising warning caws echoing in the birdhouse.</p><p>“I’m doing good!” she looks back at her phone. “But ah- any advice for dealing with crows? The small ones?”</p><p>Grooves sniffed, disdainful.<em> “Those little ruffians? Why- are they harassing you?”</em></p><p>“Ehhhh- maybe?”</p><p>On screen, the conductor walk into view, a few feet behind Grooves. He raises his arms at her, shakes them a little (to catch her attention maybe?), and starts miming punching a fist into his other open palm. Exaggeratingly. Softly, because there wasn’t any telltale rustle of feather on feather violence. </p><p><em>“I don’t usually encourage this with kids-” </em>Grooves continues, blissfully unaware.<em> “But a firm smack of your umbrella should do the trick. Message wouldn’t get into their tiny heads otherwise, unfortunately.”</em></p><p>The conductor flashes her two thumbs up. “Thanks,” she says. </p><p>
  <em>“You’re welcome. Now, call me b-”</em>
</p><p>An explosion throws the screen into disarray, and the call ends.)</p><p>Other than that… it’s the same old routine. The Conductor and DJ Grooves still argue; Boss- now that he has his body back in a more permanent state- is still working through that recipe book of his, though he makes more of his garlic water and keeps them in jars in one of her spare cupboards; and she keeps going back to bother the Snatcher.</p><p>“Seriously, kid?” He scowls at her one day, catching her when she’s going through his books, and starts pacing around the room. “What’s your blasted excuse this time, hmm? Do you miss the smell of the trees? Or was it the shiny mushrooms? The nice atmosphere?” He ticks off his claws one by one. “Or do you just really, really enjoy tormenting me?”</p><p>Instead of agreeing to that last question (which is yes, absolutely. Tormenting him is the funniest thing ever), she licks her finger and flips to the next page on this particularly thick picture book she dug out. “Nah. I just wanna read your books.”</p><p>He paused. “Didn’t you say you can’t read?”</p><p>“...I’m gonna visit the forest every single day next week-”</p><p>“-ah ah AH!” Snatcher cuts her off. “Don’t you have books back on that hunk of wood of yours? Which was a rhetorical question- because you do!” </p><p>“Yeah, but I don’t have ones like these!” She pointed to a big picture of a beetle on a page.  “And-syco-pee-das and what nots!”</p><p>“Encyclopedia.” He corrects. Then: “Well too bad! Go away!”</p><p>She blew a raspberry at him. Then, a lightbulb dings in her mind. “Hey, what if you bring your books to my ship?”</p><p>There was a pause, the Snatcher processing that one. “...give me a reason why I should do that.”</p><p>“So that way I wouldn’t have to drop by as often anymore, dummy. Isn’t that what you want?” She throws a hand up. “It’s a win-win!”</p><p>“I’m starting to regret teaching you those words and phrases,” Snatcher groans. “And what I truly want is for you to never come back. Any chance of you changing your mind?”</p><p>“Nope! That’s my final offer!” She pops her ‘p’. “Why don’t you think on it?”</p><p>She didn’t expect it to work, but it does somehow. The idea strikes a chord in him, because three weeks later he’s back on her ship with the latest board game of hers that he finally found clutched under his arms, expression resigned and scowling. He also has a thick book with him.</p><p>“Here,” He drops the thick tome into her hands. She catches it with an audible ‘oof’ punched from her chest.</p><p>“What’s this?” She blinks up at him, feinting innocence. </p><p>He shoots her an unimpressed glare. “You know what it is, kiddo.” </p><p>She does. It’s an encyclopedia- his encyclopedia, in fact, one she hadn’t seen in her raids before. It’s beautiful, with pages upon pages of butterflies and ferns. </p><p>She beam at him. And he grimaces. “Don’t look at me like that, kiddo. This is just to stop you from bothering me again.” A snap of his fingers, and the familiar scroll of his contracts unfurls onto the floor, a single quill floating in front of her. “You know the drill- sign here, and you got yourself a deal.”</p><p>A whistle echoes across the room. “Dang,” The conductor says, sipping his coffee. “Didn’t take long for you to crack, eh?”</p><p>The quill shoots towards the owl and bounces off his head.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A couple weeks into the new routine, she learns more things about the Snatcher over video calls with Grooves:</p>
<ul>
<li>Snatcher is really good at board games. Like, <em>extremely good</em>. That they only find out after the Conductor roped him into playing a game after a week of taunting and all of them promptly got their butt-kicked by the delighted spirit. It did not discourage them at all, especially Conductor- who takes to the bantering like a duck to water, their verbal battles akin to a swordfight.</li>
<li>Which leads to the revelation of how quick he takes a shine to Dungeons and Dragons. He is a fantastic storyteller, knows multiple languages, and cooks up a full campaign that is equally entertaining-slash-terrifying. A great Dungeon Master, even if he kills them all whenever he can.</li>
</ul><p>(“How do yer even know if Hell is real?”</p><p>The Snatcher grins at them, all teeth. “That’s for me to know and for you to never find out, bucko.”)</p>
<ul>
<li>His favorite spots on her ship includes lounging on the top of her machines, the railings that overlooks the living room, and that one spot beneath the warm-lamps. Almost like a cat. </li>
<li>Somehow, he works things out with Boss. That involves chemical bombs and candy. That’s all she got out of a sighing Grooves.</li>
<li>And lastly, as she finds out after a recent trip to the Skyline, the Snatcher knows how to dance.</li>
</ul><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Ach, nothin’ beats a good ol’ round of tap-dance,” The Conductor clicks his heels together and does a fancy little gig. His footwork is impressive. “And o’ course, if yer can’t keep up- dunnae feel bad. There’s always the waltz!”</p><p>Here, he dances towards her, and before she knows it he tugs her by her hand and pulls her into a simple step, the kind of hold-hands-and-move-around shuffle that all bad dancers do. She can’t help the laughter bubbling from her chest when he twirls her around, room spinning in a kaleidoscope of colours. “Not bad, lassie!” He grins.</p><p>There was a scoff.</p><p>“Your form is atrocious,” Came the deadpan from the Snatcher.</p><p>“Yer face is atrocious!” The Conductor snaps back, immediate. “Got somethin’ against dancin’, ghost?”</p><p>(Behind her, Mafia Boss leans over to whisper to DJ Grooves. <em>Can ghosts even dance? They don’t even have legs!)</em></p><p>“Fools,” Here, the Snatcher flicks another page of his book, rolling his eyes. He’s lounging on the railings, tail swaying. “I’m merely saying that <em>that</em>,” He gestures at him in disgust. “Is definitely not how you waltz, birdbrain.”</p><p>“Oh yeah? Why don’t you c’mere and show us then, wiseguy?”</p><p>“Contrary to your beliefs, I have better things to do.” A flick. “Like this book. Right here.”</p><p>She shares a look with the Conductor. Then, a grin crawls across her lips, mirroring the owl’s.</p><p>“Well,” Conductor says, pulling her along into steps again, and winks. “It’ll be rude if we insist an unwillin’ party into this, eh?”</p><p>“Mm-hm,” She agrees.</p><p>“Guess ah’ll have ta do,” Conductor laughs. “Come along, lassie.”</p><p>It only takes twenty minutes this time for the Snatcher to crack. </p><p>“That’s it.” A snap of a book closing with force, and before she knows it a shadowed hand cuts between the Conductor and her, grasping her wrist in a surprisingly gentle grip. Then she is twirled away from the Owl and looking up to Snatcher’s narrowed eyes, annoyed frown on his lips. </p><p>Hook, line, and <em>slinker</em>. </p><p>“Show us, then.” She grins, wriggling her fingers. </p><p>“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, kiddo.” He scoffs, but he obliges her. She’s pulled into a slow spin, whisking around the Snatcher as his form shifts - shadowed tail melting away into a pair of legs and formless body taking on a more solid shape, shrinking himself down until he is but a torso and a head taller than her.  </p><p>From behind them, she hears a whistle. “Damn, ghostie. Didn’t know you had it in ya.” </p><p>“I’m going to pretend I did not hear that.” The Snatcher rolls his eyes. She catches a glimpse past his shoulders - the Conductor now lounging on the cushions with Grooves, cackling away, before a set of claws snaps her back to attention. “Eyes on me, kiddo. I don’t fancy having my feet stomped on.”</p><p>“You won’t even feel anything!” She protests. “I weigh only like a couple of grapes!” </p><p>That draws a cackle out from the Snatcher. “Ha! Now <em>that’s</em> an image. ” </p><p>Then he shifts her grip, until her right fingers are laced between his claws. To compensate for their height difference, he has her left hand to hold onto his hips instead, while his own curls around her back to support her. </p><p>“Waltzing is about the footwork.” He starts, nudging her feet with his own. “Watch your balance and feel where you’re stepping - the last thing you want to do is to trip and fall. Satan forbid you embarrass yourself in front of hundreds of guests.”</p><p>“...”</p><p>“Don’t give me that look - I’ll have you know I <em>am </em>the best waltz-dancer in the forest.” He snarks. “Now, the basic rhythm is three steps, or three counts. When I step forward, you step backwards. When I go right or left, you follow, got that?”</p><p>She mulls over it. “Kinda. Let’s try!”</p><p>And so they do.</p><p>Perhaps it’s because she’s used to time magic and its steady yet unpredictable rhythm that the steps comes easy to her. When the Snatcher moves, she moves along with him: a step to the right, then closes with her left; a step to the left, then closes with her right. He brings her into a set of fours - Forward, Right, Left, then Backwards, yet never pulling or forcing on her. He leads with his body, naturally guiding her with the direction he is leaning into.</p><p>“Watch your center of gravity, kiddo.” He says. “And stop anticipating where I go. Let your body feel and follow your guts.”</p><p>She pokes her tongue out. “That’s just a roundabout way to tell me to trust you, Snatcher.</p><p>“I’m not. It’s all in your imagination.” He deadpans. “But since you’re comfortable enough to start sassing me, we’ll go faster this time.”</p><p>(She trips no less than six times in the process, but each time the Snatcher snatches her right back up before she lands flat on her face. For that, she supposes that she can hold back the roasting for now.) </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(He didn’t say anything about the crayon drawings afterwards. In fact, he made a funny sounding noise when she gave the first one to him, an artistic depiction of their recent dancing lesson. She puts it up on the wall in the hollow tree, right above his couch.) </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Then Mustache Girl Sneaks onto her ship, and steals her time pieces.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She returns to her spaceship amongst an abundance of panic.</p><p>...or not. Technically, it’s just the Conductor, and not quite panic too- to be accurate, he turns to her in a quiet sort of horror when she stepped through the door, glittering time piece in hand from her latest excursion.</p><p>“Lassie,” He says, voice low. “We have a problem.”</p><p>She looks behind him and her heart sinks, a hollow sort of feeling, as if it’s literally dropped onto the floor and shattered into many pieces. Her giant, heavy metal vault is unlocked, as empty as the void of space. The rest of her friends are looking over it in various shades of concern and confusion.</p><p>“Welp,” She hears the Snatcher say. “Guess that happened.”</p><p>DJ Grooves elbows him harshly. “Don’t,” He hisses. “This isn’t something we should be making light of-”</p><p>“HA! As if! I’m just disappointed that I wasn’t the one who pulled it off.” He spies her from over the railings, and waves her over. “Hey kiddo! Looks like someone bested you!”</p><p>“...What happened,” She managed, jogging over, Conductor hot on her heels. Up this close, she sees the glimmer of the leftover pieces of time shards scattered across the floor, which Boris is currently sweeping up into an orange dust pan.</p><p>Snatcher picks up a piece, twisting it about under the light. “You heard the bird- a robbery. What kind of vault is this, anyway?  There’s virtually no locks on it!”</p><p>“Snatcher!”</p><p>“What? Look at this monstrosity!” He makes a show of grabbing the valve and throwing it, wheel spinning. “Not even a password! Sheesh, kid.” He glances at her with a frown. “Do I have to bust out my old textbooks and show you why this was a bad idea?”</p><p>“Pah! Just say the word and my boys could show you good locks next time,” Boss pipes up from where he’s perched on Boris’ shoulders. </p><p>“Sorry, darling,” Grooves pulls her into a tight hug, and when he pulls back he seems worried. “We were all… away. And came back to this mess. I’m sorry if we can’t tell you more.”</p><p>She want to reassure him that its okay, its not their fault- maybe she should had gotten a better lock in the first place, which she totally should considering how she landed on this planet in the first place, but she doesn’t get the chance to. A screech sounds from behind her and she turns to see the Conductor frozen in place, staring at his arm with a horrified gasp.</p><p>It flickers. Literally flickers, and slowly, it fades from solid to semi-translucent, crawling down from his fingertips and spreading to his forearm-</p><p>-then she hears Boris yell in alarm, and whips around to see the same thing happening to his leg too. Then DJ Grooves, with his right flipper; Boss with half his mustache; and the Snatcher, starting from the tip of his tail.</p><p>Oh no.</p><p>“What’s going on?” Conductor asked, and in a soft grey haze of shock, she explains to them.</p><p>She says: “Someone messed with the time pieces.”</p><p>She says: “Whatever that person did, it’s resetting our timeline. Readjusting. Shifting the course of events. In a while- I don’t know how long, but- you’ll stop existing in this ne. </p><p>She says: “You’ll be okay. I’m gonna fix this.”</p><p>For a shock-split second, they stay silent. Then Boris speaks up, “Are we going to die?”</p><p>“What? No!” She reassures him. “You’re not! I said you’ll just stop existing in <em>this</em> timeline, not the <em>new</em> one, because things that happened in the past had changed! It’s like Snatcher killing me in another time but it didn’t affect me because I’ve reseted it-”</p><p>“What?” Boss said.</p><p>“<em>What?” </em>Cries Grooves.</p><p>“THE PECK DID YOU MEAN SNATCHER KILLED YOU?” Yells Conductor, who immediately launched himself at said ghost with a warcry. “YER MURDEROUS BASTARD-”</p><p>“WH- SHE’S RIGHT THERE YOU IMEBECILE-”</p><p>“LISTEN!” She yells, and by some miracle they do, freezing in their tracks. “Maybe… it’s better if I just show you.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She sits them down in a loose circle, and pulls out the last time piece in her possession.</p><p>“Time pieces rewind me back whenever I die,” She says. “Like a checkpoint in a video game. And then that timeline stops existing after I make changes.”</p><p>She shows Boss first, because he was her first major fight since she landed into this world. It’s not too bad: she didn’t die at all to his assaults back on his stage, but it didn’t help him look less shaken when a particular memory of her breaking her arm thanks to a failing sandbag flashes to him.</p><p>“Nothing a rewind wouldn’t fix.” She chirps to his protest. </p><p>Next, she reaches for the Conductor and DJ Grooves, and pulls both their hands onto the time piece. A blue light busts from it, then-</p><p>
  <em>Attempt one, crushed by a disco ball; two, stabbed five times; threefourfive- car crashes and heavy spotlights raining from above, glass shattering in a canopy of staccato rhythm and flashing lights, bones cracking skin tearing blood spilling onto the blinking floors like a splash of paint-</em>
</p><p>DJ Grooves rips himself away from her with a choked out gasp, holding it against his chest like it’ll stop the shivering wrecking his digits; at the same time the Conductor hisses like he’s been burnt, sucking in a harsh breath as he recoils from her. </p><p>“Darling,” Says Grooves, distressed. “Did… did all of us did that to you? I mean… killed you? Did we all killed you before?”</p><p>She shrugs. “Yeah, yeah.” She said, softly. “It’s okay- look, I’m fine!”</p><p>The Snatcher, as expected, fares better than the others. He cackles at the memory of her ambushed by the statues; guffaws when she drowned in the swamp, hands pulling her tiny body into the sludge. “Shit, kiddo,” He wipes an imaginary tear away, “You sure had it rough, didn’t you? These are all comedy-gold!”</p><p>(There’s something off to his smile. There’s more to it, she’s sure, something can’t can’t pin down and don’t quite want to, but for now, that’s all there is to it.)</p><p>“Yeah, well.” She shrugs sheepishly. “It wasn’t easy in your forest. Everything’s dark and there’s so many spiders.” She shivers. “Too many spiders.”</p><p>“Good!” He laughs. “I’d be damned if it wasn’t! Now what else is there? I’d be delighted to see more-”</p><p>Then he shuts up when he gets to the part where she freezes to death.</p><p>It took her countless times to get pass Venessa and complete that particular contract of his. The memories sit behind her mind like a distant fog, but it’s there, and the time piece shows him just that. The Snatcher stays quiets as he watches her die, over and over again; ice crawling up her arms, her legs. In attempt number three, the Queen holds her by her face and the ice chokes her before she register her death. Attempt number seven, she slips from the ledge when she was forced to hide outside the window. Attempt twelve, she’s blind-sided by the statues outside her manor, too slow in her dilly-dallying. </p><p>All amateur mistakes, now that she looks back at them fondly, but necessary for her success.</p><p>He lets her show him, watching every single memory of him obliterating her in his fight; glass shards and blue smoke; fire magic and explosions that shake the ground in colors and loose debris. Sneaky strikes and hard backhands even rarer. In one timeline, she’s caught in a pillar of licking flames; in another, she’s crushed under a falling iron cage.</p><p>The Snatcher doesn’t say a thing, doesn’t even twitch when almost half of his body has faded to the reset. Not until there wasn’t anymore memories to show.</p><p>“...Kid,” He says, voice strangled. Dazed, even. He looks at her with those blank yellow eyes of his, only this time she can’t quite place the indescribable emotions behind them. “I… shit. I don’t… How many times?” He forces out.</p><p>“Thirteen!” She cheers. “You were the hardest out of everyone. Took me a while to learn your patterns, heh. THe number suits you too, I think-”</p><p>“That’s not-” Grooves says, shaken. Snatcher can’t seem to form words at the moment, staring at the time piece in her lap. “That doesn’t mean it’s <em>okay</em>, darling.”</p><p>She wants to reassure him. To pat him on the back, shows him her unmarred skin and all, but a sudden flash from the outside of the ship’s window startles all of them; like a burst of supernova, she thinks, watching flames consume the world outside, creeping across the globe like wildfire until everything dissolves into bubbling lava. </p><p>It’s almost time.</p><p>“...Time pieces are like seeds,” she says, looking over them all; Boss and Boris, watching horrifically out the window; Grooves, clutching his flippers together; Conductor, face grim and uncharacteristically passive; and Snatcher, still quiet. Orange light spills over them all, flickering and crawling. “They grow roots in you, like all those purple flowers in the mountains. They don’t ever stop growing, until you’re completely-” Here, she spreads her fingers, curls them slightly inwards, and then she brings both of her hands together- sloppily making a cage. “Then it makes you do things. Many, many bad things, until it becomes that.”</p><p>She points towards the blazing planet outside, light harsh and molten, hot on her skin despite the distance. </p><p>A horrified silence falls over the group. Then Grooves ask, voice soft, “What happens… after?”</p><p>“Your planet explodes.” She tells him. “And the energy from that explosion makes more time pieces.”</p><p>“...Yer sayin’,” The Conductor hisses. “That they're a bunch a’ alien, exterrestrial scheme to reproduce? Multiply?”</p><p>“Not really, it’s more like they do it on their own, once they find someone to… y’know, all that mind control shindig. We just collect them- try and find them before they do that.”  She smiles. “Listen, I’ll fix this. Pinky-promise.”</p><p>“Oh darling,” Groove shuffles forward, drawing her into a hug, struggling as most of his flippers and torso are gone now. “Darling, darling, we believe in you. I’m just- we’re so sorry for how things happened the way it did.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” She grins, returning the hug. “At least this is how I met you guys.”</p><p>Grooves gives her a small smile, beak opening to say something, before the rest of his body fades away, existence vanishing before her very eyes.</p><p>Ah.</p><p>“Hat child,” Boss says, and she turns to see him struggling to get up to his feet, staggering on Boris. His eyes are fixed on her, firm and steady. “Promise mafia you’ll not get hurt.”</p><p>“...I’ll try my best.”</p><p>“Good,” He says, and then he vanishes too, shirt and mustache dissolving into air. Boris follows suit, seconds later, but not before he throws out a “Be careful!” as he fades away.</p><p>“Kick their arse fer me, lassie!” Conductor grins at her, sharp and nasty, finally speaking. He tries to take a step forward, but decides against it at the end. “Ah know ya could do it. We’ll get ice cream afterwards.”</p><p>And then there is two. </p><p>The Snatcher watches her, slow and steady, vanishing tail tucked under him. Then he blinks, and sighs. “...if I knew how troublesome making a contract with you would be, I wouldn't had done it in the first place.”</p><p>“Pfft,” She laughs. “As if you could resist me!”</p><p>“Brat,” He clicks his tongue. Two-thirds of his body is almost gone now. “But try not to die for real, hm? I still have dibs on your flimsy little soul.”</p><p>“Aw, Snatcher- that means a lot to me.”</p><p>He rolls his eyes, flicks a tiny spark of fire magic at her, and then he vanishes too.</p><p>Time magic pulls at her from within her chest. Her throat tightens up, and she shuts her eyes, bracing herself for the reset. </p><p>There was a pull and stretch, then: nothing.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When she opens her eyes again, it is to an empty, empty room. There are no piles of presents; no skewed cushions where two birds would sit squabbling; no tins of tea and cookies and leftover cups on the table; no scattered books, no stacks of board games or toy figurines. The paper pile sits untouched in her cupboard, pristine from drawings and maths equations. Her pockets are empty, has always been- she never owned a sparkly, pink phone that jingled with tens of keychains tied onto it, and she never had three albums worth of selfies either. It’s just her, the silence, and the ghost of an memory.</p><p>Outside, the world continues to burn.</p><p>She takes a deep breath, and ready her umbrella once more.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She fights Mustache Girl in a crumbling castle, then a fractured, collapsing stage hidden between the cracks of dimensional space.</p><p>She wins.</p><p>(She doesn’t cry when her friends stood by her as she stared down at the tyrant; doesn’t cry when they show up to cheer for her at the sidelines, sacrificing themselves alongside the many citizens she came to know in this world; doesn’t cry when she gathers the health pons, and smacks her umbrella into Mustache Girl for the last time.)</p><p>A final, random thought - in between her triumph, her relief and adrenaline pumping between her ears - that flutters through her mind before the dimension collapses into white is-</p><p>
  <em>I’ll miss them.</em>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Snatcher, Conductor, DJ Grooves &amp; Mafia Boss after the timeline is restored: don’t go! Stay a while longer kiddo</p><p>Hat Kid, yeeting them off her spaceship: begone, THOTS </p><p>(Just kidding she totally will come back to visit) </p><p>this fic is an result of what i wished could had happened in the canon game, the desire to talk about how I think Time Magic works, and how my stupid ass missed cooking cat (she was in the kitchen and i didn’t know!) until i got to end game. </p><p>anyways, this had been sitting in my wips for nearly 2 years so i'm glad to finally release this into the wild. thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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